Ocmulgee Mounds National Park initiative gains momentum after Senate, House hearings

And just like that, Macon is several steps closer to getting the state’s first national park. 

A Senate version of the legislation that would redesignate Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park as a full national park and create a federal preserve passed out of the Senate’s energy and natural resources committee Tuesday morning.

That means the bill is eligible to be heard on the Senate floor. 

The initiative got some more good news Tuesday afternoon when the U.S. House’s federal lands subcommittee held a hearing on a variety of land bills, including the national park. Reps. Austin Scott and Sanford Bishop, both Congressional veterans who represent portions of Macon, addressed the subcommittee, as did Seth Clark. 

“We have done our part, invested our private resources, and are prepared to continue to do so,” Clark told the subcommittee. “We are ready.”

Clark, who serves as the Ocmulgee Mounds National Park and Preserve executive director and a Macon-Bibb County commissioner, told The Melody that the legislation is essentially ready for packaging and presidential approval after Tuesday’s hearings.  

Whether a lame duck Congress has the energy and political unity to pass a public lands package remains to be seen, however. Congress is running out of time to make that happen, and there’s a lot that it needs to accomplish in the next three weeks, including the annual defense spending bill and funding the government for the next fiscal year.

The legislation has strong support from Macon’s Congressional delegation, though, as well as the Muscogee (Creek) Nation — which will have a management role in the park — Robins Air Force Base and various Bibb County and Middle Georgia municipalities and organizations.

“This is historic and unprecedented progress toward establishing Georgia’s first National Park, but more work remains ahead,”  Sen. Jon Ossoff, who shepherded the bill through the Senate, said. “I’m grateful to Congressman Scott, Congressman Bishop, and Sen. [Raphael] Warnock for their partnership, as well the extraordinary efforts of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, Macon-Bibb County Mayor Pro Tem Seth Clark, and local leaders for their years of hard work, advocacy and leadership.”

Scott, the bill’s lead sponsor in the House, noted that efforts to establish Ocmulgee Mounds as a national park have been underway since 1934. 

In 2019, Scott, Bishop and other lawmakers authored Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park Boundary Revision Act, which eventually led to the space being expanded from 702 acres to more than 2,800 acres and recognized as the Ocmulgee Mounds National Historic Park. 

Currently just 5% of Georgia land is in the federal registry, Scott told the subcommittee, noting that any land obtained in the future would be through sale, donation or a land exchange, but no land would be seized through eminent domain.    

He emphasized the protection of public hunting and fishing access within the Ocmulgee Mounds and the protection of state and private property rights. 

The act would allow for land near Robins Air Force Base to be put into conservation, serving as a buffer between  further development and the base’s flight areas.

The National Park Conservation Association analysis shows that the act would increase visitation to the Middle Georgia area by six times over the next 15 years, Bishop told the subcommittee, it could generate more than $34 million in annual tax revenue and create more than 3,000 jobs related to tourism.

A special sales tax authorized by the Georgia General Assembly and approved by Maconites in 2021 allows the county to use tax revenue generated largely from visitors to offset local property taxes.